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Stanford physician reveals truth about multivitamins: ‘Only 0.1% of health supplements are actually helpful’

admin | September 25, 2025 9:22 PM CST

Multivitamins and supplements are a big part of the current lifestyle and wellness trends, with many influencers, experts, and even health professionals advising their followers to take them.

But do they really help us? In a report published by Johns Hopkins Medicine on 'Is there really any benefit to multivitamins?', researchers found that multivitamins don't reduce the risk for heart disease, cancer, cognitive decline, or an early death. Another analysis of research involving 4,50,000 people found that multivitamins did not reduce risk for heart disease or cancer. The truth about multivitamins and supplements Shining light on whether you should be taking supplements or not, in a September 17 Instagram video, Dr Hillary Lin, MD, Stanford-trained physician, healthcare entrepreneur, and longevity expert, shared the truth about the supplement and multivitamins industry.

"The supplement industry's dirty little secret? Most of what's on the shelves is pure marketing hype," Dr Lin captioned the clip. While she stressed that the entire supplement industry is problematic, she also pointed out that certain supplements are necessary. Dr Lin explained, "I'm not against supplements. I actually think some supplements are very valuable. I actually used to tell people, 'We don't need supplements. Just eat better and you'll be fine.' And then I realised there are a few things that certain supplements are necessary for, but I think there's maybe like a 0.1 percent of the entire world of potential supplements that are actually proven to be helpful in any way." The Stanford specialist added, "There's a bunch of supplements which are probably not harmful except for your wallet, and then there's more that are probably harmful because they're interacting with something, and then there's those that are just like contaminated with heavy metals…It's a very big field of problematic products with a few valuable things, and it's hard to sort out what all those things are." What the supplement industry doesn't want you to know According to Dr Lin, these are a few facts that the multivitamin industry is hiding from you:

90 percent of supplements aren't FDA-regulated before hitting stores
The average person wastes $40+ monthly on useless pills
Some can actually harm you (looking at you, unregulated pre-workouts)
Many are contaminated with heavy metals
Even "harmless" ones can interfere with meds or mask real issues

Lastly, the expert suggested a trick to consuming supplements: "Knowing which ones actually work and which are just fancy placebos."